India Trip: Day 3 - Agra!!

First off, I should tell you, "click on the pictures and you get a bigger version of the picture." Some of you knew that, some of you didn’t. Now you all know. I return you to your regularly scheduled blog.

On Day 3 we woke up early and jumped into a car to head Agra, home of the Taj Mahal. Agra is a 5 hour drive from Delhi. In America, a 5 hour drive is actually a destination that takes about 5 hours to get to. In India, a 5 hour drive means there is 2.5 hours worth of traffic where you will move roughly 30 miles in that time. In America, the drive from Delhi to Agra would take about 3 hours.

We met our driver, Dev Singh. He was the nicest of the drivers and tour guides we had. We really felt like we were in capable hands with a guy who had the inside scoop. We spent the next 3 days traveling with him to Agra and Jaipur. In a world of insane driving, he was remarkably cool, calm and funny. He bought guavas primarily for my dad.

Dev also bought me lozenges made of ginger and honey for my persistent cough and ate the package of Nerds that Shelly gave him one at a time. I also didn’t think he liked it very much.

Within 5 minutes of being on the road, he told us the following saying about Delhi traffic. “You need good brakes, good horn, and good luck. And the horror is compulsory!”

Traffic consists of cars jammed in both a parallel and perpendicular manner to your car. Despite the endless sea of cars, the sights were amazing. There is plenty to see on a long drive in India. I present you exhibit A.

I guess this is one way to get to work. I have no idea how you hit the button for your stop when you have a roof seat. But with the bus crawling at 2 mph, you can jump off with very little worry of injury.

But let’s say that bus travel isn’t your thing. You don’t like ladders. I don’t know. Or say that you have 300 various sized buckets that you absolutely, positively have to get somewhere outside of Delhi’s city limits and you can’t trust the inside or outside of a bus to get the job done. If that is the case, then you do what this guy does:

Perhaps you are facing a scenario where you are having a family reunion and all 16 of you have $3 collectively for taxi fare. Then you just have to split a rickshaw. I’m not sure if being on the roof is the worst or best place to be.

Please note that the very front of a rickshaw typically only seats the driver. You can clearly see that two are in the front seat. But you also know that the side you can’t see also has a person or two. In short, 16 family members are getting somewhere together. Of course, I’m making up the bit that these people are related. This could just be a bunch of randoms hating each other for every single kilometer.

And it wasn’t a one-off random experience. Proof that the packed rickshaw is a delhi way of life. Apparently adding carpool lanes in India doesn't make much of a difference.

I know during our wedding, some had said they never saw a car decked out in flowers. Well, we weren't making it up, people.

So those were the cars. What about the people? This picture was of a kid standing proudly with a tshirt that he may or may not have fully understood. Interestingly enough, the guy to the left is an undercover officer about to make the arrest.

We also passed by a band getting ready to go to a wedding. The wedding band in India is a little different than it is here. I guess both play music poorly, but the Indians seem much more excited by everything.

While we were on the side of the road taking a picture of the wedding band, we were trying to get a picture of the woman washing her clothes by hand. These guys insisted to be part of the picture.

Here is a socio-economic study for your. If you are poor, you smile for the camera, if you are middle class or above, you pretend that the camera is sucking your sole out of your body. This picture pose became known as "grim face". This theme returns in this entry as well as down the road during the trip. The only people who seemed to smile were people in abject poverty.

As we continued on our 5 hour journey, we came to the state line. To cross into a different state our driver had to pay a tax. While waiting, there are bunch of guys trying to rip you off with touristy novelties. These guys have their monkey’s ready for your amuzement. They pretty much come right to your car and demand that you pay if you look. So you have to be like Indiana Jones when they open the arc of the covenant. Shelly still proving she’s one of the best at getting covert pictures.

The following two pictures make me laugh. The first was taken in February 2010 on our trip….the next was taken in 1963 after Dev hit 88 mph on our faulty accelerator Toyota Delorian Hybrid. Toyota makes the Prius hybrid and now the Delorian hybrid. However it still needs roads. That’s why it took 5 hours. But alas, the two pics:

As you get closer to Agra, you start to get excited about seeing the Taj. About 30 minutes out, Dev jokingly screams out, “so here we are at the Taj.”

Obviously this is a knock off. Sadly this one was built in 1794 for Shah Jahan’s ex-wife. Jahan was a hopeless romantic and apparently pretty vindictive when he had to be. Please note the sign, you don’t have to pay a fee to enter the imposter taj. Well thank god.

In case you feel you need to look your best before getting to the Taj and want a shave, there is a guy on the side of the road for just that purpose.

I would just make sure your tetanus shots are current.

So that was essentially our 5 hour drive to Agra. I told you, it’s hard to get board when there is so much to see.

Once we were in Agra, we caught a quick meal and got to our hotel. Jay Pee Palace Agra. Despite the name bringing up the painful 5 year run of JP Losman as Bills QB, we found the hotel pretty wonderful.

The whole place smelled like a wonderful garden. And as a nerdy allergic-to-everything guy, I was pleasantly surprised by not sneezing. The hotel hooked us up with rangoli, a traditional wedding flower necklace. The hotel was sprawling. It was only 3 floors, but the building’s shape was that of two tetris pieces. To get to our room, we must have made 9 different turns. I was exhausted.

Once we were refreshed, we decided to go with the tour guide to see the Taj. I’ll skip the bus ride and the walk to the main gate. That was uneventful. Once we were inside the palace complex, you knew that the Taj was going to be as good as you expected.

When you approach the Taj, you first pass this structure.

At the top, there are 11 little towers. In the back another 11. Those each represent one year in the time it took to complete the Taj. This is interesting only in the scheme of the entire building. Symmetry is important to Shah Jahan. He designed the entire palace complex to be symmetrical. It's a nice touch that it took 22 years to complete. His idiot son ruined the symmetry.

Segue in the history of the Taj. Shah Jahan was a good guy who happened to have one really crappy son, Aurangzeb. To make a long story short less short (but still kinda long), Jahan built the Taj as a mausoleum for his favorite wife, Mumtaz. Though he was a Muslim, he respected Hinduism and blended the beliefs together. As mentioned earlier, one of the Taj’s unique design points is that the whole thing is symmetrical. Hindu’s dig symmetry. The Muslims find it offensive. Apparently only God is perfect, so to mimick symmetry is a kick in God’s face, or so the devout Muslims of that time thought. A moderate guy like Shah Jahan respected the ornate beauty of having a symmetrical palace.

When Jahan was close to completing his Taj Mahal, his idiot son, Aurangzeb, put him in house arrest and took over the Kingdom. Some would say it is fitting as Jahan had murdered his brothers earlier to gain rule of the land earlier in his life. This house arrest prevented from Jahan from ever taking a single step inside the completed Taj and was forced to see it from a distance from across the river in the red fort until his death.

This is me in his room that overlooks the Taj pretending to be a disappointed, heartbroken Shah Jahan. Convincing, I know. Authetic down to the jeans and zipper jacket.

The point of telling you the history is that Jahan’s son was such a vile piece of trash that when Jahan died, he had his father buried next to Mumtaz. He did it not as a gesture to let his father be with his beloved wife, but instead to break the symmetry of the entire grounds. It's no wonder where Aurangzeb got his vindictive behavior. His father built a fake Taj for his ex-wife. Ok, I followed that joke too far. Sorry.

When you walk into the main structure of the Taj, Mumtaz is buried right in the middle and to the left is Jahan. There is enough space on the right for another tomb. I suggest that they go and get Aurangzeb's remains and bury him on the right and restore the symmetry. I figure that sticks it back to his son.

That my friends is the quick and dirty of Shah Jahan, his idiot son and the meaning of symmetry.

As for our trip, once you get onto that red building that I mentioned about 12 paragraphs ago, this is your view.

Then you step 5 feet further and this is your view.

We took this photo to prove that the three of us made it there and weren’t using someone else’s pictures.

Our smiles may look forced because the tour guide took about 15 shots prior to this that washed out the Taj behind us.

Shelly and I also took this picture as it is our 3^rd Wonder of the World together.

What were the other two? How about this:

And this:

Once past the first photo op location, we listened to the guide.

I would like to note that my dad and I are not about to kill the guide. That is just our resting face. So next time you ask, “why are you mad,” know that we aren’t. That’s just how our faces rest. Oh and thanks for the compliment.

But we do smile when photographed. Afterall we are abjectly poor Indian people….

If you are looking at the Taj pics and asking, “are those minarets slanted outwards,” then you would be pretty observant. They are slanted outward because Shah Jahan did not want the original structure damaged in the event of an earthquake. So he had them built at an angle outward so if it did fall, it would fall away. For the record, there has never been a sizable earthquake in Agra. I know. I just jinxed it.

Now as pretty as the straight-on shots are, Shelly went into the gardens and found a couple more shots. Sepia tones always make things look cooler. As does black and white.

Apparently beautiful, blonde girls are a novelty in India. As a result, people throw their families at the blondes to be photographed with them. As we exited the main structure, this guy asked Shelly, “Photo?” Naturally your response would be similar to shelly’s. “Sure, I’ll take your camera to get a picture of all these people you know in front of this historical structure.”

But once Shelly said, “Sure,” the guy thrusted his 9 year old daughter in Shelly’s direction and snapped a picture. This was the picture I got of this occurrence.

About 2 seconds later, Shelly said, “thanks.” I guess “Thanks” sounds close to the hindi word of, “why don’t you send your entire family and take another picture.” So this is the second photo I got of this.

About 20 minutes later, a gaggle of highschool/college age boys came up to Shelly and asked for her picture. Of the 6-8 guys, they took every conceivable combination of photos with her. Each one alone, then every combination of 2 and shelly, and a couple 3 and shelly pictures. It wasn’t even the most stunning part anymore. We now knew that people wanted to get a picture with her.

What was stunning was that for all the excitement they have to ask to take the picture, most of them refused to smile for pictures. They put on “grim face”.

I wish I captured this on tape. But literally, when Shelly agreed to take the photos, they were as happy as Charlie winning the golden ticket. And as they each took their picture with Shelly, they were stone cold. It was as if Shelly told them their pet died seconds before the picture.

As we wandered the area even more, we learned that to the left and right of the famous structure are two equally as compelling palace and mosque. You typically don’t see them in the standard photos of the Taj. Both are identical as to keep the symmetry. Shah Jahan also wanted the main structure to be framed within each arch of the mosque and palace.

Hell of design idea Shah. This is the top of the dome inside the mosque. Pretty cool.

As we were finishing our tour guide instructed us to sit on a bench and reflect for a few minutes. That entailed Shelly, my dad and myself sitting down on bench, wondering what we were suppose to think about, noticing that the mosquitos were starting to come out and then haul it back to the bus.

On the way to the bus, a charming lad of about 14 years of age, slid up to Shelly and asked to sell her a book on the Taj. 800 rupees. Quite a steal. A book of pictures, many of which we just took available for the handsome price of $17.77. Shelly said no and kept walking. Then he offered 700 rupees. A special price that we were told was just for us! Maybe it’s cause we are so good-looking or maybe it’s because we are so smart. I don’t even want to make you jealous and tell you that a lot of the street vendors of India were giving us prices they wouldn’t deal give to someone else. This kid was knocking $2.22 off the asking price.

But wait, do nothing now and he drops his price more. We must have gotten more special in our 6 strides because the price just kept getting better. We kept saying no, and the price kept dropping. As he hit 200 rupees, he asked “what do you want to pay for this book.” Shelly said she didn’t want the book. He then said, he’d give it to us free. I’m not sure how that was going to work the profit angle into his free book pitch. Luckily we were back to the bus and didn’t find out how he was going to flip that on us.

We got back to the Jay Pee Palace, ate some fantastic Chinese food, saw a firework or two for Chinese new year and hit the sack dreaming dreams of one of the prettiest tributes to love ever created.

NEXT UP – More palaces, Monkey temple, floating palace, Amazing upgraded hotel at Le Meridien, Dance show.